Why does spaghetti snap?

Scientists from the University of Paris seem to have worked out the answer to the age old question, Why does uncooked spaghetti snap into more than two pieces when bent?

Scientists from the University of Paris seem to have worked out the answer to the age old question, Why does uncooked spaghetti snap into more than two pieces when bent?

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The team led by Dr Basile Audoly and Dr Sibastien Neukirch conclude that the pasta is broken up by so-called flexural waves, after confirming their mathematical model to be a series of experiments in the Laboratoire de Modilisation en Micanique with "Barilla no. 1 dry spaghetti pasta of length, L =24.1cm".

They took a high-speed video of each strand of pasta as it broke, capturing the details with 1,000 frames per second, they revealed how the initial break sends waves rippling down the length of the pasta. This wave boosts the curvature of the already bent pasta, triggering a cascade of other breakages, which, in turn, trigger more waves, causing the strand to fragment.